Today was the first day Charity and I have had an opportunity to go fishing in several weeks. The combination of travel, fly fishing shows, and bad weather have made it almost impossible for us to get on the water. We had a few errands to get taken care of today, but promised each other we’d get to the river. As it turned out, our chores took longer than expected and we didn’t leave until about 2:00.
When we saw it getting late we dashed into the garage, threw a bundle of fishing gear in the car, and took off. In retrospect we should have brought a camera, but that would have seemed a little like work. Today was one of those days when the fishing was so much more important than the fish. Sunshine, 70 degrees, fresh air, and running water were enough on their own. Our three year old daughter had a big time crawling around on the boulders while we just took in the day.
We saw a few fish moving around, but very few bugs. This is typical of a winter thaw when fly fishers are thinking about hatching bugs, but the bugs know they have another month to kill before emerging. The trout know better and tend to hang near the bottom since there won’t be any insects on the surface.
We fished nymphs and did better than we had a right to. We fished one at a time while the other played with our daughter. I caught a beautiful rainbow around 11-12″; a bright pink stripe and big enough to look at home in of the tailwaters. Charity caught a phenomenal brown of around 14″. It had an athletic build, was hard as a rock, and had bright red spots about the size of dimes. Like I said, it would have been nice to have had a camera, but we sent both quickly on their way after our daughter gave them a quick pat on the head before their release.
It looks like we’ll have some serious rain here in the next couple of days. We’re heading to Asheville to speak at the Land O Sky Chapter and hopefully do some fishing in the area on Wednesday.